“You now get to decide for yourself just what the scope and clarity of your brilliance can be….This is the writer’s life. And for this there is no teacher left. So go for it. Wow yourself.”

“You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.”

“There are times when the world around you becomes so quiet, so silent in the midst of your achievements. No wows, no congrats absolutely zilch. You just have to learn to keep it together, move forward and never stop believing in yourself, never stop loving yourself and the things you love to do that made you the person you are right now. Be proud of yourself.”

“If you decided to reteach yourself your own loveliness today, what would you do? How would you speak to yourself? Can you allow yourself that much?”

“But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.”

“Education,’ one of R’s teachers taught, ‘teaches you not to be yourself.’ But who is yourself? R decided if it or he wasn’t blood, it wasn’t anything.”